Cassettes were a big deal because people could make "mix-tapes" to give to their friends. MDs could bring back that lost art. Trade MDs; listen to your friends mixes.

one point to note. the type of sampling you're talking about is straight "field recording" or recording your source, straight from a mic. most musicians involved in sampling, those mostly being Hip Hop DJs do more than just simply sample their source- they edit, cut, pitch shift and all sorts of other production on their samples to evade lawsuits. for this they just use samplers like the MPC at home, where their record collection is too. as good as the sound quality may be with recording off an MD, you'll never be able to provide the features of sound editing on the MD itself.
so i think the market for field recording is pretty small
i do however think Sony should focus on their removeable discs, especially if they're cheap. that's a damn handy thing to have. a single minidisc is definately less life threatening to lose than your whole iPod collection.

i do however agree that the iPod headphones suck, and that it's definately less cool seeing people walk around with white headphones this year than it was last year.

Yeah, the betamax/VHS debate is completely relevant.

I'm not sure when it happened, but at one point or another I became an amateur audiophile. I cringe when people listen to mp3s through their computer speakers. I cringe when I hear an mp3 that's sampled lower than 192kbps... and though it admittedly doesn't occur often, SOMETIMES I can hear audio artifacts in even 192kbps encoded files and it drives me nuts (I deleted the new Sparta album off my Hard Drive because even tho it was 192 I couldn't listen to it).

As such, I personally find it ridiculous that the most distinct feature of the iPod is its shitty headphones. Apple itself markets the white-cord earbuds as a fashion accessory. And now everywhere I go I see people wearing them. Now, I don't have any problem with them aesthetically... but they're GARBAGE.

But this is the thing: for the average consumer, they're perfectly fine. Most of them probably aren't even aware of the terrible audio quality they're receiving. It doesn't even matter to them. It's not the point. The point is that their entire shitty record collection is at their fingertips.

From my point of view I find it ridiculous that anyone would want to listen to shittily-encoded mp3s on shitty earphones. But I understand that my opinion is probably even more ridiculous from their point of view. I gotta lug around these huge headphones and I can't bring all of my music with me (then again, my collection wouldn't fit on an iPod either... but of course it comes significantly closer). So I argue "but I can also record live audio!", and they're like "who cares?". Well, I do. I could use the netMD capability and record mp3s straight to my minidisc player just as fast as you can upload mp3s to your iPod, but if I did that then the quality isn't much better than an iPod anyway. Instead, I record it by taking an analog feed of the mp3 coming out of my stereo amplifier which makes the it sound warmer and more natural. Of course this is a lot more work, and for me it's worth it. But for almost everyone else, it isn't really worth it at all.

If Sony was wise and wanted to come up with a real iPod killer, here's what they'd do:

1. Realize that in 2004, there are different selling-points than when the MD first came out. For example, size isn't a selling point anymore because ALL mp3 players and MDs are pretty much as small as they can get without sacrificing usability through things smaller buttons and tiny-ass LED displays.

2. As such, determine which factors are, or CAN potentially be used as selling-points. For example:

yo taylor, was this the shit you got fucked on?
http://www.latitude53.org/main/news/images/schmoozy2004.jpg

it's tonight. should be a gooder.

from my Soc classes the fall of Betamax has sorta been traced to two things:
1. Sony having a strangle hold over the propriatary rights over Betamax (like Mac and clonePCs)
2. VHS carried Pornographic titles, where Betamax did not.

(though there is an ongoing argument as to which was a more important factor, i think the second one was definately more important than the first)

There's some relevent reading on this topic, particularly: "The Usefulness of Everyday Things", and my HIST 115 Essay on Technopoly and Technological Determinism. YOW

Here, Tay. I believe this article is pertinent now: Why VHS was better than Betamax.

It has to do with when something is techinically superior, it doesn't necessarily imply superiority in the minds of the general public (which, like it or not, is the de facto measure of superiority, purely because it's the one that matters most in a capitalist society.) Betamax was technically superior, but who cares if you can't record more than an hour? When you ascribe popularity to that coolness, it's really those other factors: aesthetics, convenience, usability, ubiquity, etc. Speaking as geek, it's really depressing, actually. For me, the glaring example is Windows. But that's just my pet peeve.

From the Al Gore video archives:

"I took the initiative in creating the Internet," Al Gore preposterously claimed on the March 9, 1999 Late Edition/PrimeTime, but that didn’t faze CNN’s Wolf Blitzer who just kept tossing softball questions.

AND THEN THE HILARIOUS FOLLOW UP:

Al Gore claims "I took the initiative in creating the Internet," but mixed up Web addressing. An August 8, 1996 story by Bob Schieffer on the CBS Evening News shows Bill Clinton and Gore looking over the shoulders of school kids who appear to be surfing the Web. Clinton asks Gore: "What's our e-mail address, Al? You know that?" Gore replies with a Web address: "Yeah, w, w, w, dot White House." Gore pauses and an aide pipes up "dot gov," prompting Gore to add an erroneous extra "dot" as he instructs the student to enter "dot gov dot."

And lastly for good measure:

During a January 17, 1993 pre-Inaugural tour of Thomas Jefferson's home, Al Gore points to statues of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Marquis de Lafayette, asking "Who are these people?". Also along on the tour: wife Tipper as well as Bill and Hillary Clinton.

You can't make this shit up!!!

WOW. That HI-MD shit looks amazing!!! I like how they're catering to the main reason I prefer MDs to begin with: the ability for high-quality live recording. They've now implemented compressionless PCM formatting which means that recording onto MD would be just as comparable in quality as recording onto your computer via an $800 sound-card. Not only that, but I think it's fucking brilliant that by plugging into a USB, your computer recognizes the MD as just another storage drive. And then from there you can loslessly upload recorded content ONTO your computer for further editing! InFUCKINGsane. I think this HI-MD format has incredible potential for revolutionizing low-budget studio recording techniques. Not only that, but think about how much impact it will have on musicians who sample audio? They'll be covertly recording every little sound with no more difficulty than taking a photograph. Then they'll take it home and upload it and manipulate it. For the sampler, it's the audio equivalent of the digital camera revolution.

But as with any product, whether it catches on or not has more to do with advertising and hyping the "cool" factor than it does with the quality of the product itself. I'm not saying that the iPod isn't a great little gadget (don't get me wrong, I think the iPod is great at what it does), but Apple's marketing campaign was air-tight and the bottom-line results are telling.

But then again, when Sony really wants to push a product, their marketing is pretty good too. We only need to look as far as the Playstation for an example. But I wonder why the MD was never marketed to North American consumers? I never really understood why they didn't market it outside of Japan.

Taylor's version of an iPOD killer?

SONY'S HI MINIDISC: http://www.sony.net/Products/Hi-MD/

each disc is close to a Gig of storage. that's pretty good.

english is so inadequate, Beck, i read your correction as
i think faster than i type (like, i think faster is better)

instead of

i think faster than i type


or ofcourse I could be the one inadequate.
or ofcourse I could be the one inadequate
or ofcourse I could be the one inadequate
or ofcourse I could be the one inadequate
or ofcourse I could be the one inadequate
or ofcourse I could be the one inadequate
or ofcourse I could be the one inadequate
or ofcourse I could be the one inadequate